The county’s gun sanctuary fraud
Now that Fayette County is a gun sanctuary, what might be next? A free speech sanctuary where it really is okay to yell “fire” in a crowded theater? A measure giving drivers the right to text and drive, despite both the law and common sense?
The possibilities are endless.
Maybe the republic of Fayette County should convene a constitutional convention to hash all this out. Now, let’s see, who’s to play the role of James Madison (future president and “father” of the United States Constitution?) How about David Lohr, the county commissioner?
If Lohr is Madison, who’s Alexander Hamilton? John Jay? Ah, naturally, Vince Vicites, and Scott Dunn.
Perhaps, the three commissioners will put their heads together and come up with a book explaining it all, just as Madison, Hamilton, and Jay explained the now discredited and discarded U.S. Constitution.
The Federalist Papers was fine for the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. For the more enlightened 21st century, something new, something fresh is required.
Our courthouse scholars are certainly up to the task. They displayed their intellectual mettle grappling with the intricacies of the gun sanctuary ordinance, didn’t they?
Here’s what Hamil … eh … Vicites said: “I am a man of my word, and I have kept word on this. My word is my bond.”
Dunn issued a ringing declaration, a warning, if you will, to the miscreants in the cities of Harrisburg and Washington, D.C. “Make no mistake,” Dunn said, “this is a reaffirmation…. we will not allow the constitution to be infringed upon.”
(What’s this, Dunn favors the old constitution? Surely, a misinterpretation on the columnist’s part.)
As for Dave Lohr, he had this to say:
“The Second Amendment” — another reference to the U.S. Constitution? What’s going on here? — “is a very powerful and very secure entity for our country.
“I will not permit communism or communist tactics that we have seen in Virginia come into this state.”
In the commissioners, the United Municipalities of Fayette County have three fine examples … of blockheads in action. Lohr’s reference to communism especially makes you want to duck and cover.
If this were only a laughing matter…
Alas, the adoption by the county commissioners of a gun “sanctuary” ordinance is as fine an example of misgovernment as you are likely to get in this age of government and political malfeasance.
The commissioners fancy that the county is a sovereign state. Besides being bright enough, Vince Vicites has been around long enough to know that this is crazy.
This county, like all Pennsylvania counties, is a creature of state government. It has little if any authority independent of the state. It is true that county commissioners are crucial in the scheme of local governance. The choices they make about economic development and the administration of health and human services, for instance, are, or can be, important. But their writ is small. It is circumscribed by state laws and regulations.
County commissioners may be decision-makers, but they are rarely policymakers. That role is reserved for governors and members of the General Assembly.
That’s just the way it is, and no amount of posturing by the county commissioners can make it otherwise.
The sanctuary ordinance, an attempt to wall off the county from state and federal laws, is not worth the paper it’s written on. It can’t be enforced, regardless of the commissioners’ talk of “fines” and “90 days imprisonment” for violators.
The commissioners’ magical thinking comes down to them saying, in effect: “We are going to pass a local ordinance that says we are going to violate state and federal laws.”
Who would enforce such a monstrosity? Not the state police. As state police spokesman Ryan Tackowski told a television station in York recently, “State police are not impacted by local ordinances.”
But this isn’t the half of it. Reviewing the recent spate of gun sanctuary ordinances approved by municipal officials in Virginia, conservative pundit Brad Polumbo of the Washington Examiner said the measures were “an affront to the rule of law and threaten the viability of our entire electoral system.”
“Punish” lawmakers at the ballot box or challenge gun laws in court, Polumbo said, do not “descend into lawlessness and anarchy, as the Second Amendment Sanctuary (movement) threatens to do.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.